Through the Night
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: Fifteen years after Perdition. Elboron comes to know the truth of his parents’ relationship. Part five of five. COMPLETE!
1. The Tale

**Disclaimer: **Didn't own yesterday, don't own it today, probably won't own it tomorrow…

**A/N: **This is the third (and probably last) part of the 'A Tale' series. This is the Elboron story since his is the only POV I haven't used so far. This chapter takes place five years after _Perdition_, though later chapters will all take place ten years after **_this_** chapter.

_For my sister who helped me plan out the fisrt draft._

_For Rana Ningue who suggested me to write about Elboron. _

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**Prologue **

He wandered through the crowded room, young eyes amazed by what they saw. Tall elves, and stout dwarves, the king laughing over a drink with the small halflings he'd heard of only in tales until that day. All of them talking; over what the years were yet to bring, the present, but mostly, they seemed to talk of the past.

_"Great green eyes, coulda pieced your soul lass…"_

"_Farewell sweet earth and northern sky…"_

"_It was like a great darkness that reeked of evil. Many eyes were clustered…"_

" _And she laughed! Could you imagine that? There she stood before the Lord of the Nazgul himself and what does she do? She laughs. Only the bravest of people could have done such a deed. And m'lady, she is the bravest."_

He lingered near Master Holdwine a second longer than the rest, knowing the story he recited well but never having heard it from different lips other than those of his father and uncle. His mother never told him that story.

Passing his father, Elboron walked out of the open doors and onto the balcony that overlooked the gardens. There his mother leaned heavily against the white stone railing, head bent as though in prayer, shoulders tense.

"Mother?"

Her head rose slowly and she looked at him with clouded eyes.

"Mother," He repeated again, unsure whether he should call for his father or simply leave his mother in peace. She had never been one for large gatherings, always preferring to remain in Ithilien whenever his father was summoned to the White City. "Are you alright?"

A smile formed at the corner of her mouth and she reached out to him. " Did you're father send you little one?"

He shook his head, coming closer so that she could rest her hand on his shoulder. "You grow taller every time I lay eyes on you. Soon you shall be taller than you father and I shall have to crane my neck whenever I wish to speak to you."

He smiled at his mother's words.

"Or perhaps send you my messages with birds who can fly so high as to reach you."

He laughed. She looked down at him. " Why are you not inside?"

"I like it better out here with you." He said simply, resting his head against her hip.

"Is that so?"

He nodded.

"Then I find myself flatter! For my son, who has longed to meet halflings all the days of his life, prefers my company to theirs." She laughed a little to herself, earth worn fingers coming down to stroke his hair. "I cannot wait to inform Master Meriadoc."

"Mother?"

"Yes."

"Why are _you _not inside?"

"I needed to breathe." She responded calmly. "I just needed to breathe."

"Oh."

He turned so that he might wrap his arms around his mother's waist, small hand resting on the swell of her abdomen.

"Mother?"

"Yes Elboron."

"Does it hurt?"

"What?"

"To carry a child."

It takes her a moment to respond and when she does her voice is low and wavers.

"No, Elboron, it does not hurt to be with child."

He spread his small fingers so that they may cover more of the mound that sheltered the baby inside.

"Will it be a boy?"

"I do not know."

"A sister then?"

"I do not know."

Her fingers stopped.

"Mother?"

"Yes little one."

"Tell me a story."

She looked down at him, the noises of the gathering behind them drifting through the open doors.

"Your father is the better story teller."

"Perhaps, but I wish for you to tell me a story."

She sighed and moved them to the bench that was hidden in the shadow of the door.

Sitting she placed him on her lap, arms like steel around her son, briefly struck by the wish that he would never grow.

"What story do you wish to hear then?"

"A new one."

He felt her laughter before the noise reached his ears.

"What about?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yes. And father too."

He did not see her frown against his hair, did not see the brightness in her eyes as she begun to tell the tale.

"The captains had been gone two days and I asked the Warden to take me to the Steward."

He knew this story as well though it had never been put into words for him.

"He gave me a window that looked out on the east and asked me to walk with him in the gardens…"

He listened to her in the shadow, her voice rich in his ears, small hand resting on her stomach. He listened, enthralled, and silently declared his mother's story the best.

**What do y'all think? Chapter One still on it's way. **

**Please leave a review. **


	2. The Lie

**A/N:** I'm sorry, this took longer than expected. I got sick and was in no state to write at first and then my brother installed a new computer which lead to more delays. Anyway, here it is, chapter one. I've got some of chapter two planned out in my head but I got finals this week, so I make no promises. Read and enjoy.

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I found her on same balcony ten years to the first night, indeed, very little had changed save the lines on her face and the swell of her stomach. There was no child there now, Morwen was born and grown.

"Mother?"

She does not turn to me, only lifts a hand to beckon me near.

"Always you find me first child." She says, though the mirth in her voice is clouded by another emotion.

"I am gifted."

"Very…" her voice trails off into the silence of the night. I look out at the gardens, my mother's work illuminated by the pale spring moon. I look at her, her golden head raised so that she may look out as well. In the moonlight the years are not so many, not so noticed, and she looks like the maiden my father sketched long ago in different gardens. Different gardens where she was Eowyn of Rohan still, a shieldmaiden first and foremost.

"Mother?"

"Yes Elboron."

"Do you ever miss Rohan?"

She leaned forward a little, hands like pale claws around the stone. She never spoke much of Rohan, of her brother, her cousin, her uncle, always with a bittersweet tone, but never of Rohan. I had been there a few times in my life, the only one of my siblings who had seen the Land of the Horse Lords yet.

"Ithilien is my home, Elessar my King."

My brow furrowed at her response.

"Perhaps it is so, but you were raised there. Surely you must wish to return sometimes."

She shook her head at the night, eyes cast up to the star above as though they would give her an answer.

"Ithilien is my home. Here I have my garden and my house. Here is my family, my husband, my son, my daughters." She looked down at me then. "This is all I need."

"But you had a family before us, a home—" The words do not make it out of my mouth.

She looks at her hands, still tight around the stone, moving her left hand so that the light reflexes off the two bands on her finger.

"Yes I had a family. A father who rode for honor and glory and did not return, a mother who could not live without him, and a brother who faced the deaths of all his house, myself included." He voice rises as she continues. "An uncle who was dearer than father, who, blinded by trust, would not see the snake at his right hand, and a cousin who would not hear my pleas. Seven mounds on the left, nine on the right, more praise to the dead than to the living!" She stops and steps away from me. She takes a deep breath and steadies herself. "I love my brother, but I am a Lady of Gondor and Ithilien is my home. You and your father and Morwen and Nienor and Haleth, you are my family."

There was nothing either would say on the subject and we fell into silence.

The sounds from the gathering inside the hall reach my ears and I thought back to why I had come to my mother again this night.

"Mother," I begin, long fingers toying with a loose strand of hair, ignoring the white strand that, like steel, glints in the light. "There are a host of guest inside, all looking to congratulate you on your marriage which almost a score old. Master Meriadoc even has some trinket to present you with. Why are you not inside?"

Her shoulders shrug and she reaches for my toying hand. "I needed to breathe,"

It seemed as though the only thing that drove my mother outside was lack of breath; in the last ten years, it has been the only excuse she offered whenever I found her outside. Tonight, however, something was different, I could tell. There wassome burden on her that she could not bear, something too great for her to keep locked within her. More than a flicker of her usual uncertainty, this was something that threatened to devour her whole if she did not purge herself of it. Rough fingers and a clammy palm wrapped around my hand and for a moment I looked into her eyes and felt her fears as though they were my own.

"And think."

"Are you feeling well?"

Her eyes were sad and her pale face drawn. Slowly she shook her head, bringing her other hand up to my cheek.

"You look more like him everyday." Her fingers traced my cheekbones, my jaw, my brow, like they had when I was a child, only now the touch is unsettling and I long to step out of it.

"Mother?"

"Do you remember," She starts quietly, " a time not to many years ago when you found me crying outside a gathering not too different from this one? You asked me why I wept and I answered that was remembering."

My mind flew through different memories before coming to a halt on the one she spoke of. I recalled the same sad eyes, the same fearful look, almost as though she was coming undone and could do nothing to stop it. I placed a hand on her shoulder and looked into my mother's eyes, trying to find the root of her fear.

"What is it you remember mother? What is it that drives into the shadow when the light opens its arms to you?"

She bent her head so that her brow rested onmy shoulder, andI felt the moister on her lashes as they brushed againstmy cheek.

"You are a good son. If ever the Valar have rewarded an unworthy soul with peace it has been I. You are everything, I would ask for no other son."

I could not understand, she seemed delirious in her grief and her words made no sense to my mind. She straightened and pulled away.

"Mother? Please, tell me."

"A lie."

Her answer confused me as much as the things that had led to it, and I found myself at a lost. My mother had never been a simple creature, and there were days when it was easier to sit with her in silence than to try and understand the happenings of her mind. I did not ask of her, thought better of it more often than not, both my father and mother has passed through the Shadow and waited in doubt only to have the old world fall away in the silence, and there will always be some things that are best left untouched.

My mother sat wearily on the bench, tears shimmering on golden lashes, leaving twin trails on her pale face.

"I love your father."

Her statement caught my attention, and I lower myself at her feet.

"He is your husband of many years, I would expect no less."

She shook her head sadly, fingers tugging on the string of sapphires around her neck.

"I love your father. Your sisters and you are my greatest joy. I am happy here. Ithilien is my home."

I placed my hand on her lap and she tenses at my touch.

"There was a time, in the beginning, when things were not the same. I was unhappy. I looked around me and saw death; I looked into the distance and saw nothing but the darkness. A worm tracked my very step and there was naught my brother could do for me when battled called his name. Glory and honor, that's what he rode for and with his sword many foes would fall."

There was bitterness in her voice that stopped my heart, but her sadness was as clear as the moon in the sky above and I did not know what my mind found odder.

"Hope arrived from the West and I thought perhaps my salvation had come at last. But I was sent away and I knew no more of that hope, for when I saw it again it was dimmed. I became a creature of war. I took up my sword against my enemy and laughed. Men sing of me in lays and women stitch my deeds into tapestries, meant to adorn their halls and give them hope."

The heaviness in her throat grew with reach word that passed her lips.

"I acted without fear because it is hard to fear when you have no hope. I sought death on that field and glory as well, so that all who came after might remember the maiden who lingered in the shadows, waiting on others. And glory was granted, my sin forgiven by those I abandoned but death the Valar would not give me. For all the honor I had claimed, I was none the richer, still alone, in a foreign cage waiting for doom that would come whether the quest failed or no."

"I asked the Warden to take me to the Steward of the City and he did. I met your father for the first time in those healing gardens, looking out for some sign of our fate."

"I know the story. You asked him leave and he would not grant it. He called you beautiful and asked what grieved you, for if it were in his power, he would make you happy. He gave you a window on the east and asked for your company, which you granted and walked the gardens with him everyday. He gave you his mother's mantle to keep as your own and on the fifth day the Shadow fell and he spoke to you of Numenor. You say that is when you knew you loved him, though you did not say and he left the Houses only to return again and tell you of his own love. He offered you his heart for your hand and a garden beyond the rivers. The Shadow left you then and you were healed. A year later you married in Rohan and returned to the White City before finally coming to Ithilien in the third year of your marriage."

She smiled sadly at me even as her tears doubled, her hands falling limp on her lap.

"You know _that_ tale well, but, I must confess, that is not the whole story. The shadow fell and I saw before a bleak future in a hall of horses and hay, waiting ever for my brother to return. I saw myself as I had been, only there was no Dark Lord to blame. Then I looked at your father who stood at my side, and he loved me, it was clear, clearer than the sorrow in my heart at that moment. He loved me, a wise man of Numenor, and I knew he would do anything if it would make me happy. Something held him back that day, my own fondness of the dream that has ridden to the East, perhaps fears of his own. He left and visited it me seldom, and I found myself missing him. He had been my first true companion in many long years and in my heart the first seed of love was planted. I did not it then, I was too tangled in my doubts, my despair, everyday was some new tragedy and I could understand my purpose in this New Age. When he came back, it was like the Valar had handed a solution."

My heart stopped at my mother's words and something sharp and cold pierced it.

"He asked for my hand and I accepted and I saw myself in a garden, with tall trees and healing plants, I saw an opportunity to be happy. In my heart I thought it was nothing more than a dreamt that would not come to light, but it would grant me freedom from my gilded cage and I could not denymyself that."

I backed away from her, slowly standing, feeling as though any movement too quick would shatter me. She had _used_ him. My father who, as she herself confessed, would do anything to see her happy, he had been used by the sorrowful maiden on the walls.

"You _used_ him?"

"I saw no other way."

"You lied to him."

"No! I did not claim to love him. I made no false claim, I merely accepted—"

"To _marry_ him!" I laugh mirthlessly. "Of course he had no reason to think you didn't love him."

"He _knew_ the truth, Elboron."

I stand slowly, feeling as though any movement too quick who shatter me.

"He would not have agreed to such a thing."

She bent her head, eyes fixed on her limp hands.

"He knew. The blood of Numenor runs in him as it did in his father before him, as it does in you. He can read the hearts of Men as easily as he does a book. I know now that, even if I had lied to him, he would have known. He is a good man, and he wished to see me happy. I think to myself, now, that he accepted because he looked at me and saw the same opportunity, the same possibility, to find happiness."

"And so you pardon yourself…"

"No, not pardon, never pardon, never forgive. I know that there are things that should have been done differently but I would not trade this life away."

I shake my head and move away from her, not stopping til I lean against the door frame. In so few moments both my mother and father have been stripped of their silver lining as the words flow from my mother's mouth.

"If all this is true, why do you tell the tale you do? Why can you not tell your story as it was?"

"I found my self with child for the first time and I knew he would one day ask to know his parents' story. I thought of what I would say. In the end I thought it best to tell the tale the way it is told in the Red Book, so that all that was ever less than what it should have been could be forgotten."

"So you lie to your children for the shreds of comfort it provides!"

She looks at me then, her eyes blazing.

"A mother finds no comfort in lying to her children! I have made decisions that can not be unmade, and I must live with that. I did only what I did because I thought it would be best." My ears barely catch her next words. "I told you the story as it _should_ have been."

I turn away and begin to make my way back into the house. I stop once more, turning my face towards her though I cannot see her, she is hidden in the shadows.

"Do you regret it?"

"I would not change my life."

"Even though it is founded on lies?"

She hesitates for a moment but when she speaks her voice is firm.

"Lies are sometimes stronger than the truth."

I walk away, leaving her in the dark.


	3. The Dream

**A/N:** I'm so sorry this took so long, but Faramir was harder to write than usual.

When I was younger I remember being in awe of my mother's gardens, they were a place where I could spend time away from my studies and with my mother as well. The gardens were where my sisters and I would sleep on summer nights, trying to make out the stars in father's books. And, though I never told another soul, they were to me a sign of my father's love, his promise fulfilled.

Now I wander aimlessly through the same gardens, the new grass yielding beneath my feet, the flowers and plants waking up slowly from their winter sleep and I could not help the revulsion that rose inside. These gardens were payment to my mother on my father's part. Some pretty thing to ease the pair of them, or perhaps to fool the world around them.

I ease myself into a swing that hung from one of the sturdier trees. If felt as though my very history was being burned before my eyes. Lies, betrayal and shame, that was the foundation for my family. I could not understand.

'Friend she called him… and still he took her. _Friend_.' The word was bitter on my tongue for the first time in my life and I wish I could forget everything. I wish to wake up and find myself a child again so that I might hide behind my mother's skirts and find comfort in her arms. She would tell me it was alright and I would believe her.

_Friend_

The word echoed in my ears.

'_She should not have used him. He should not have asked her to begin with. He should have offered such a thing that she could not reject.'_ My mind continues to list all the things that could have been done different, all the things my parents should not have done, the list ever growing, my heart heavier then it had been before.

'Elboron?'

I jump at the sound of my father's voice, calm and firm, as it had always been. I look up but do not stand. He makes his way out of the shadow of the wall and walks into the moonlit path before my tree.

He has not changed much, there are more lines around his eyes, his mouth, his brow, he frowns to often my mother said top him once, but the grey in his hair was not so plentiful, lesser than the white in my mother's, the blood of Numenor runs through his veins and the year do not mark his so severely.

His eyes search my face keenly, shining like the stars reflected on the water.

'What troubles you?'

'Nothing.' I lie, wishing he would turn away and go back to the gathering.

Instead he lowers himself on the grass before me, ignoring the fact that he was in his finest tunic, and that as both Steward and Prince, it would not be proper to just sit down in the garden while his guest, which included the kings of Rohan and Gondor, waited inside without host, and I'd imagine, hostess. But there he sat, formalities forgotten, fingers running over the grass.

'Spring has come early this year.' He says, leaning back on his hands.

'_Ere Spring was born, now Spring hath died.' _The fragmented line of one of the many lays my father had read to me filtered through my mind. It was odd, where moments before my mind raced, now there was naught I could bring myself to say. My tongue was heavy, my mouth dry, my lips clumsy. There was nothing I could readily say to the man who sat before me. And it seemed ridiculous to me, my sudden muteness around my father, who had never been quick to scold. But then this was no shattered vase or ripped page or muddy rug. This was my need to understand his behavior in the past. And for all my father knew and spoke of history, he did not speak of his own past. A mirthless laugh threaten to pass from my mouth at the thought that at the very least both my father and mother were not so different in their ways.

'Why don't we ever go to Rohan?'

And with that my muteness is gone, and all my questions return.

'We go to Dol Amroth once every year, yet I have only gone to Rohan once, and the others know it only through tales.' The words pour from mouth quickly.

My father just stares at me from his seat.

'Twice.' He says after a moment.

'What?'

'You have been in Rohan twice.'

I open my mouth to disagree but my father continues.

'We found out about you while in Rohan for your uncle's wedding.'

He becomes lost in some memory, and I fall silent, swinging to and fro.

'How did you talk mother into going?' He breaks out of his memory and looks at me. 'She always hated Rohan so much didn't she? She always longed to leave, why would she ever willingly return?'

'Elboron—'

'Surely it must have been some great gift you promised in return for going! What was it? The stables? The armory? Th—'

He has risen now, and the anger in his eyes cannot be missed.

'That is how things were, are still, you give her things that she might stay happy?'

He stands before me now, one hand stilling the swing, trapping me where I sit.

'Do not disrespect you mother so.' He breathes.

'How can I disrespect her with the truth? The truth from her own lips no less!'

My father backs away then, and with a deep breath, faces me again.

'She told you then?'

I fall silent. Somehow I didn't think he'd admit to it so easily.

'Yes.'

He heaves a sigh and turns his back to me, shoulders tense.

'Perhaps it is true; she did always wish to leave Rohan. There was no bribery needed to have her return however, Eomer has and always will be, her brother, after all.'

'Did you know the truth when you married her?'

'Yes.'

'Did you not feel guilt in the slightest way?'

'Yes.'

'And still you did it?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

His shoulders sag with my last question and he kicks a pebble in the grass.

'Because,' He starts slowly 'I loved her. She was my light in those dark days when the Shadow covered all. She was my salvation. I thought, it was only right that I should be hers.'

'She did not ask you to save her.'

'No, no, she begged instead a Man of the North whose heart lingered else where to help her, but he couldn't. After that her pride would not let her speak.'

'Out of pity and love then did you ask for her hand?'

'Pity…it all comes back to pity—' He says quietly to himself as he shakes his head. 'No, not pity. Too grand a maiden was she too pity, though my heart was grieved by the sight of her, a lonely wanderer in a world remade. I knew I could not bear to see her go, I knew she could not bear the thought of having to return to a place where she would ever wait on others in silence.'

'I loved her and when I looked at her, into her heart I saw _hope_, for there I saw a beginning to something that would, perhaps if tended correctly, grow into something greater than any elven garden. I took the chance, at my own happiness and hers.'

My father spoke of hope as my mother had. He spoke of love, she spoke of freedom. And in the end the two alike had used the other, guided by a tainted hope that all would be well in the end.

'I had a dream the night she returned to Rohan.' My father says suddenly in an almost wistful tone, 'I dreamed of her in a white house in green hills. I saw her smiling, a child in her arms, happiness in her eyes.'

'And even though she did not love you, still you held to that dream?'

'I did.'

'Why? Was there no other Lady, more known to Gondor than her? No other maiden who would delight in a garden and children? No other Lady who had not wished for death or loved another or seen the darkest Shadow only to return incomplete? Why her, Father? You say you loved her, and yet you must have foreseen some bitter future where her regret became scorn for you and any life you offered her. Surely, even with your hope you must have feared a life in which neither you nor her were happy! And still you stand before me here and say you risked both your happiness and hers on a chance that things might not be so terrible.'

'There is no excuse I can make to reason with you,' my father says sadly. 'Perhaps because no excuse can make due of this tangle your mother and I created. But you cannot judge us justly. For you, my son, are here today, and all the choices have been made and all the parts laid out before you. You cannot understand the thoughts that drove us for theydo not make sense to your mind, which has never known true sorrow or lost, or fear so great as that caused by war. They were different times then, andwe, different people. I cannot blame you, though my heart is pained by your pain, I can only pray to the Valar that in time you will understand.'

He walks away and it is I who am left in the dark.


	4. The Past

**A/N:** Sorry, Real Life reared its ugly head and delayed the making of this chapter, but it's here now, so enjoy. Only one chapter to go!

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When I was younger, a child still, little over four years, I had a dream. I dreamt of cold waves and fearful screams and of a world plunged into a great darkness. I dreamt of Numenor in its last moments, after the Mighty had forsaken it. I dreamt of the world's ending and a silence that mourned so great a lost of life. I remember waking from these dreams, crying, shaking, gasping for air as though I, myself, was drowning. I remember my father's comforting voice and my mother's warms hands as she wrapped me in her mantle. I remember lying between my mother and father, still in my bed, the orange glow of the fire chasing away the dark shadows of the room, my father's singing in my ears, soft elvish words that left no more for fear, my mother holding me within the folds of soft blue, the light scent of athelas in my nose. I remember being lulled to sleep that night safe between my mother and my father, knowing that no harm would befall me whilst they were with me.

I sit in my father's study, my mother's mantle on my lap and long for that feeling to return.

The hours stretch into endlessness, and I confine myself to my father's study, away from the gathering, nestled in the corner between two bookshelves and the window. A tome rested on the arm of my chair, some random book of elvish lore I knew by heart but read still.

I rested my hands on the soft material in my lap, thinking back to the stories that surrounded it. It had been my grandmother's mantle, an engagement gift from the Steward, a great blue expanse that matched the midsummer night's sky, framed by silver stars at the throat and hem, given to my own mother on the five days after meeting my father. A bit quick for doing away with the heirloom of a person you can barely remember yet love nonetheless.

My father told me once, when his mother wore it, it smelled like rose oil and dried lavender. Now the smell of grass and the healing plant lingers in the fabric, with stray golden strands clinging here and there. My grandmother had raven hair, not unlike my father's hair, and Morwen's and my own. I remember a portrait I saw of my grandmother, hanging in the house of the Stewards in the White City. Pale skin and grey eyes, a thin mouth, an air of sadness that even the portrait painter captured; she was young. And she died. Unhappy, locked away in a glided cage, too close to the growing shadow of Mordor, afraid.

How odd, the woman who left her home for love withered, while the one who looked for little more than freedom flourished.

Once I wondered why her husband would not release her to the sea, now I wonder why love of her sons, if not husband, didn't give her reason enough to remain. I wonder if my father does not wonder the same. Sympathy towards my father and his family is the last thing I wish to feel at the time, and as unbidden as it comes, it remains, and I cannot push it away. 'It all comes back to pity…wretched thing.' I mumble to myself, fingers tracing the worn thread that make up the silver stars.

'Indeed, pity is a terrible thing.' I jump, having not heard the door open, or anyone approach. _'Fine ranger I'll make…'_

I stare at the hobbit before me, with his bright eyes and happy grin, the sort of creature that does not let the years stop him, Master Meriadoc Brandybuck stood tall, one hand in his hair, the other holding a mug of ale.

'Should you not be at the party?' I ask before I can stop myself, wanting to be alone.

'I could ask you the same thing; you're the first born after all.' He smiled at me, settling himself on the rug at my feet, it seemed as though the floor was the most popular seat tonight. I arched a brow at him and with a shake of my head, rose from my chair and sat besides the hobbit. He years older than I and still, he looked like a child sitting next to me on the floor. It had always amazed me, that he, Master Holdwine, rather small (yet large among his people), a hero of the War of the Ring. I remember hiding behind my father the first time I saw the hobbit, and he's keen on not letting me forget.

'May I ask why you're hiding here then?'

'I am not hiding.'

'Tucked away in the study while all the rest are in the Hall on the other side of the house…seems like hiding to me lad.'

I stare at Master Meriadoc coolly. 'You're here too. Does that mean you too are hiding?'

He shook his head with a hearty laugh. 'I am only giving your Uncle a chance to calm down.'

I smile, forgetting my former offence. 'I will not ask.'

He nods 'Yes I think it is best you don't' He takes a sip from his mug, offering me some. I decline and lean against the chair I sat in only moments before, the material of my mother's mantle touching the skin of my neck.

'Where were you when the Shadow fell?'

A longer sip and then: 'In my room.'

I nod. 'Did you talk much with my mother or father while in the Houses?'

'I spent more time with your father at first. Asking after Frodo, Sam, Pippin...' he falls silent for a moment. 'He called me to him the first time to ask after your mother. Did you know that?' There's something in the hobbit's eyes that seem almost wistful.

I nod.

'I remember looking out my window and seeing the two of them walking about the gardens. The both of them looking tired and worn, and indeed they both were, but there something, a light almost, that seemed to follow them, when they walked together. Your mother, she seemed,_ comfortable _when she was with him, and your father, he looked at ease.' Master Meriadoc shakes he's head. 'I remember being somewhat taken with your mother, but frightened for her. There was a coldness to her, something that had been present since Dunharrow and sealed after Theoden's death…Quiet, angry, sad, that's what she was then. There was something about your father that seemed to soften her however. I remember hearing her laugh for the first time since Pelennor, and being shaken, it was _different_. I think that's when I knew there was something there, between the two, something that perhaps neither noticed.' He stops to take another drink and continues. 'After Faramir left the Houses, I spent more time with your mother. She was quiet again. Always fidgeting with that,' he points at the mantle behind me. 'Almost as though she was nervous. She asked me if I had someone waiting for me back home and I told her my family. She cried and I never understood why. I thought perhaps it was because Theoden but I never asked. I believe there are some things that ought not be spoken of, if they don't tell you, then you shouldn't ask.'

I breathe in deeply and think over what Master Meriadoc told me. The coldness around my mother only my father seemed to melt. Was that too part of some act? It seemed impossible somehow.

'Was she happy Master Brandybuck? Did they look happy?'

He smiled up at me.

'I left when the summons came and returned to find m'lady smiling. She looked relieved, like some great weight had been removed. And the weariness in your father's eyes was not so great. She left for Rohan and she seemed almost broken, won't let go of Faramir's hand until she had to.'

Had she dreaded returning to Rohan so strongly she clung to my father as though he were a lifeline?

'I returned to Rohan for the wedding. And your mother looked as beautiful as any elf I'd encountered in my wanderings. There were tears and farewells and she became Gondor's White Lady. But through it all she was happy. Smiling and laughing and dancing. The only other time I ever saw her so happy was when she told me she was with child.' His eyes meet mine. 'Both of them loved you from the moment they knew of you. That hasn't changed, not much will ever change that.'

'She thinks of Rohan and thinks of all the things that have hurt her. She can't remember when she was happy there, though it is the land of her people. She looks here, however and finds memories of those she loves plentiful. She made peace with herself, for the greater part, because I don't think she'll ever fully forgive herself, years ago. Both of them have come to accept the choices they made then.'

I turn toward him, staring in surprise at the things he tells me. The hobbit moves to stand, a little less sure on his feet than he had been upon entering, but still steady.

'Pity is a terrible thing Elboron, as is remorse. It eats away at a person until they're little more then a shell. Here,' he reaches into his pocket and removes a small leather bag. 'Give this to your mother when you see her, on my behalf, if you will.'

He leaves and I sit on the floor thinking over the hobbit's words.

**A/NII: **Everyone walks out on Elboron…


	5. The Truth

**I'm _sooo_ sorry this took so long, but these past few months have been a bit trying. No worries now though, this chapter is done and this story comes to it's end as all stories must(I'm really quite pleased with it). I'd like to thank everyone who read and reviewed, and even those who didn't. I hope you all enjoyed this story. Thank you and without further ado...**

* * *

There was a stillness in the room as Master Holdwine walked away, leaving me to my thoughts. There was much I did not know, would never know. Tomes looked on from their high places and I thought then that the tales of our past, written by Man and Elf alike, once removed from their era, are little more than that: tales. 

History is man's making of the past.

Had Sauron won, the tales of the fourth age would likely paint the Men of the West as bastards rolling in the mud.

I looked at the mantle on the chair, my grandmother's mantle, my mother's mantle now, one day it would be mine to gift to some maiden, some keeper of my heart, but for now it was Eowyn's, gifted by the Steward of Gondor on the day the Shadow fell. This mantle that warmed my mother but could not ward off the chill of the red glow cast by the east; this mantle that had been wrapped around me, around Morwen, about Neinor and Haleth in their own turn, this mantle that fenced in the sky and smelled of athelas, held the pieces of _my_ past as much as it did my mother's and grandmother's. It held my father's past as well, and Boromir's who we went silent for once a year.

Had they too known the feel of their mother's warmth as they rested their raven heads against her lap, with her humming lullabies of the sea as they drifted to sleep? Had my father found comfort in it too when he first dreamed of the smothering dark, of the mourning wails and roaring waves? Had he placed it on my mother's shoulders and seen her fair hair, felt sword worn hands and loved her as he had not loved since he'd last seen the raven locks and sea grey eyes of the woman he called mother still though he knew her not? Had he seen her as a woman, beautiful and brave, mourning for the life that she'd lost, afraid of the one that lay ahead and seen _her_, Finduilas, reaching her own untimely death, with a kernel of hope, of love, of life buried beneath the ashes?

My mind made words from my father's words; words that made my heart ache under their weight.

He had married her for love and hope.

Where did this leave my mother?

The mantle in my lap suddenly felt as heavy as my heart. A vision flooded my weary eyes and I saw a dark corner in a dimly lit room. I blinked and it dissolved. I rose steadily from my seat on the floor, the weight of the mantle leaving me though my heart remained burdened. I walked from the study, tomes of written history behind me, towards the chest from my vision, and hopefully the answers I sought.

* * *

It was a chest the length of my arms spread, dark and heavy in the corner of my parents' chamber. On the lid was engraved the seal of Ithilien, the horse intertwined with the tree and seven stars. There was a sense of intrusion that filled me as I left the top of the chest and rested it against the wall. The insides were lined with embroidered velvet, my mother's work, black and soft, and in it laid a wide array of mismatched objects, things I did not expect. There were portraits, of Boromir the Brave my uncle, Finduilas, Denethor, with his mouth in a heard line and his eyes like flint. Rough sketches of my mother with her hands cradling the roundness of her stomach, of babes with sleepy eyes and toothless smiles, names written at the bottom in the steady flourish I knew as my father's writing. 

My mothers halting slanted letters filling up a page of parchment, a letter her brother.

There were many letters I dared not read past their beginning, save for one that left me knotted inside: _"I am sorry to say that _he_ stirred today my lord. And it was in that movement I knew this child is every bit a child of the Mark, but he will be both strong and wise like his father, more scholar than warrior, for I find myself hoping this _son_ of ours will not know battle. I hope that this letter finds you in the utmost health and safety. You will return soon, I know it, my time draws near and you will return so that you might feel this child move within my womb, so that when the time comes and _he_ arrives, you might hold _him_ and call yourself father, and you, love, will be worthy of the title… I know of your desire to name him Barahir but I have thought of another name, one that I hope will make the other easier to bear. Elboron…"_

I removed from within its depths the folded white standard of the Ruling Stewards, the bloodied and tattered banner of Rohan's old king, a crumbled piece of paper that held the rough beginning of Ithilien's banner. I removed leather gauntlets fitted with the elven rune for B with the White Tree above it, a shield like brooch, a gold ring fitted with a stallion's head, with twin emeralds as blazing eyes, long dried blades of glass weaved into the shape of heart, not unlike the one that hung over my parents' bed. There was a broken hilt of a sword wrapped in a heavy fabric, my mother's sword with two mare heads rising up the blackened blade. These were the remains of the sword that slew the Witch King, buried away instead of proudly displayed for all the world to see. I dared to lift the sword, remembering the grip of my hand about it, the weight of it. It was heavy, I could not imagine my mother wielding it, in battle no less, against so great a foe. But with a shake of my head I recalled there was much I could not imagine from my mother. I placed the sword gently to the side, and continued my search. I knew not what it was I looked for in that great trunk only that I sought out some answer to grab at in whatever form it came.

The contents of the box were seemingly endless, in that dark depth of black cloth, the broken pieces of a horn; black arrows broken jaggedly in half, their pointed ends cruel. Inside a little box of yew I found a necklace of sea shells, a feather and small tinted bottle of rose oil. I found a ring of silver burned and deformed so that I could barely make out what it was. There were books, some younger than those my father kept in his study, older than those that come from the city, with sand set in the bindings between the pages. I found a dress wrapped in thin paper, of a deep red, embroidered with gold threads that were worn and beginning to come undone, locks of hair, flaxen like my mother's, kept inside of long silver box. I found a poppet, small and simple, lying perfectly in the palm of my hand, with knotted yellow yawn for hair, two dots of fading blue for eyes and a simple line of red for a mouth. Limp limbed, head falling to the side, the soft fabric of her green and white gown hem less, slowly coming undone, it was not like the dolls any of my sisters called their own. This had been made in the home, a gift for a daughter from her mother.

I saw my mother then, a little girl with this poppet clutched to her side, without a mother or father to hold her, only an elderly man who she did not know and a cousin she rarely saw and a brother who in hope of protecting her would later trap her inside the gilded hall perched atop a lonely rock. This little doll that would remain with her for the rest of her days, safely concealed within her skirts, even on her wedding day, a little doll that would ride to battle within her jerkin and later be pressed into my father's hand as he left her, _his_ White Lady, once more for the city of white stone, with only the promise on his lips that he would return for her.

All around me were the remains of a living, breathing past, more real than words on parchment, with eyes and hearts all their own. A mother's gown, a brother's gauntlets, a father's ring, a little boy's book, a gift from a wizard, a little girl's doll, and her sword from a time when she was a little girl no more, but instead a woman without fear or hope alike. All of them tucked away in a box, reminders of an age gone by, an age that little by little belonged only to books and bedtime stories. My mother had sought to escape this, it came to me like a blow to the heart, she had looked for freedom from the past, from the stories of honor and glory and death. No life in Rohan then, like the Gondor of my father's time when men won nobility through death rather than life. And they had been just that to one another: _life_. There was no shame in that, no shame in the silence that was still too new to fill. It had been on silence and half truths that my family had been built on, on a need to forget and willingness to move on.

Carefully I placed everything in the chest anew, the tiny doll I laid in last, perhaps the most precious of the things I had come by.

* * *

I found my mother out on the same balcony where I left her, though the guest had long since gone to sleep. The stars were dimming as the sun began to rise in the far east. The air was cool and she stood before me in only her gown, so I slipped onto her shoulders the starry mantle so that she might be warmed again. 

"You still wish to find me?"

Her voice was low, but her head was held high.

I looked at her and thought of all I had come by through the course of the night. I thought of all I had planned on saying as I walked here, her mantle clutched in my hands. I thought of the stories, the half truths and half lies and the forgotten language born from the sorrow and despair, a language that for all my learning I would never know.

"You are my mother, I will always find you."

She bowed her fair head for a moment and in that moment I saw her not as Mother but as Eowyn, a woman who knew her own mind, her own choices, a woman who had done what she thought was needed and could not free herself from some things no matter how much she tired. I pitied her then, pitied her for the woman she'd been and the sorrow that had cut her too deeply to ever be truly healed.

But she raised her head and she was herself again, proud and gentle, my loving mother who had walked bent forward so she might hold my hand and still allow me to walk on my own. She was my mother, and the Steward's wife, a lady both noble and fair, with a beating heart, and stirring spirit, who inspired admiration and hope, leaving no room for pity. She took my hand and called me son, turning to me and I allowed myself to cling to her as a child might.

We parted and turned back towards the brightening sky.

**THE END**


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